Hugh Conway

Hugh Conway, the pen name of Frederick John Fargus (26 December 1847 – 15 May 1885), was an English novelist born in Bristol, the son of an auctioneer. He had success with his fiction in the early 1880s.

Fargus was intended for his father's business, but at the age of 13 joined a Mersey school ship Conway lent by the Admiralty for training merchant navy officers. He then returned to Bristol, where he was articled to a firm of accountants, until his father's death in 1868, when he took over the family auctioneering business. On 26 August 1871, he married Amy Spark, daughter of a Bristol alderman. They had three sons and a daughter. One son, Archibald, became a first-class cricketer, scholar and clergyman.

Novels

Called Back, with Portrait and Sketch of the Life of the Author. Bristol: Arrowsmith, 1885 Bodleian Library

Dark Days, Bristol: Arrowsmith, 1884 California, Bodleian Library

A Family Affair, 3 vols, London: Macmillan 1885, Bodleian Library Archived 2023-04-07 at the Wayback Machine

Living or Dead, New York: Henry Holt & Co 1886, Harvard

A Cardinal Sin, London: Remington, 5th ed., 1888, Bodleian Library

Short stories

Bound Together. Tales, 2 vols, London: Remington & Co, 1884

Vol 1: Illinois

"The Secret of the Stradivarius" (1881), first published December 1881, "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine", Vol. 130, pp. 771–784

"Fleurette" (1883), first published April 1883, "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine", Vol. 133, pp. 512–523

"A Cabinet Secret" (1882), first published 9 December 1882, "All the Year Round", Vol. 50, pp. 469–475